Swift Sky Scooter

Swift Sky Scooter

The Scooter: Comet IRAS-Araki-Alcock(C/1983 H1)
Sketch by Janis Romer

About this comet Janis wrote:

“This gorgeous comet moved so fast, I could actually see it move in front of the stars! IAA was an “opportunity” object, leaving us as quickly as it came. I was one of the lucky ones who got a really good look at it.”

Comet IAA was an earth passing comet that for a time moved 30° per day and was as close as 4.6 million kilometers from earth. It was a naked eye comet between 2nd and 4th magnitude and was impressive in the sky moving through Ursa Major towards Cancer. Jan’s sketch is an accurate rendition on the night of close approach.

Written details compiled by Frank McCabe.

Solar Prominence – October 10, 2008

Solar Prominences

Solar Prominence
Sketch and Details by Jeff Young

My permanent pier is a bit high for this time of year (when the sun is so low to the horizon), so I had to rotate the binocular head a bit to see through it. The sketch orientation therefore doesn’t match the sun graphic (courtesy of Tilting Sun by Les Cowley) in the upper right.

I’ve only been doing solar sketches for about 6 months now, but this was definitely the most fun to sketch so far. Conditions were pretty poor (with seeing alternating between bad and horrible, and transparency not much better), but there was gobs of detail to take in and try to reproduce.

White Derwent Graphitint pencil on black Artagain paper. Solarscope 70mm h-alpha filter / Tele Vue Pronto / Astro-Physics Barlow / Baader MkV binoviewer / Tele Vue 19mm Panoptics / Astro-Physics 400QMD equatorial mount. 10-Oct-2008; 10:20UT; County Louth, Ireland.

Mixed Media Daytime Moon

Daytime Moon

Gibbous Moon
Sketch and Details by Frank McCabe

On Saturday October 18, 2008 at 8:00 am local time, I was out walking in east Mesa, Arizona on a gorgeous morning with the air temperature about 22°C (72°F) and the humidity in the high teens. Over in the western sky the 19 day old waning gibbous moon was riding high and bright in a remarkable deep blue sky. Never in my life have I seen such a bright daytime moon. I stopped in front of a nearby building roof with a tall palm tree on the other side. I took out of the folder I was carrying an index card and using a pencil I drew the moon on one side and the building roof and palm tree on the other side. I jotted down some notes on colors and positions. When I got back home to Illinois, I combined the pencil drawings and notes into a mixed media sketch. For the moon I used pastel pencils (white and black) and for the building and palm tree I used Cray-Pas oil pastels on deep blue construction paper. Of course the view was much better than I am capable of capturing but I will never forget the treat of this perfect morning.

Sketching:

Naked eye drawing
Date and Time: 10-18-2008 8: 00 am PST
Location: Power Road and Broadway Ave. Mesa, Az.
Weather: Perfect
Moon at 19 days, high in the western sky.

For this sketch I used: dark blue construction paper, 10”x 8”, white and black Conte’pastel pencils and a blending stump. Also cray-pas oil pastels for the building and tree. This sketch was put together from pencil sketches and notes made at the time of the observation.

Frank McCabe

An Often Overlooked Globular Cluster M2

M2

M2
Sketch by Janis Romer

Charles Messier made his second catalog entry in September of 1760. M 2 is located in Aquarius a bit less than 5° north of Beta Aquarii. It has a stellar population of 150,000 suns and measures some 175 light years across. M 2 is surprisingly distant for a bright globular cluster at 37,500 light years and has a visual magnitude 6.5. With the eye at the eyepiece of a moderate size telescope, this globular appears 7 minutes across and somewhat oval in shape. It is worth noting for those that observe with a Dobsonian telescope or use an Alt.-Az. mount, that when M 2 is about 175° in Azimuth you can pan your scope straight up 13° to globular M 15 and after returning to M 2 you can pan down 22.5° to globular cluster M 30. That’s a globular triple.
Object: Globular cluster M 2 – Artist Janis Romer – Telescope – Criterion 8” f/8 Newtonian Reflector – Sketching Location: Pennsylvania, USA.

Written details by Frank McCabe

The Splinter Galaxy

NGC 5907

NGC 5907
Sketch and Details by Ferenc Lovró

Date/time: 2008.06.29 23:00 UT
Equipment: 12″ f/5 Newtonian
FOV: 40′ Mag: 71x
Seeing: 7/10 Transparency: 5/5

A gigantic, greatly elongated galaxy, visible totally from its edge on. It covers an area of about 13′ x 1.4′ on the boundary of the constellations Draco and Auriga. It has a homogeneous colour, even its core is just slightly brighter than the rest of its outside territories. When looking at its shape, it’s very clear why it is commonly referred to as the Splinter galaxy.

Andromeda’s Subtle Structure

M31

M31
Sketch and Details by Kiminori Ikebe

M31(NGC 224) And Galaxy Difficulty level: 1/5
Date of observation: 1996/10/15 02:21
Observing site: Kuju
Transparency/seeing/sky darkness: 3/2/4
Instruments: 32cm Dobsonian and XL14
Magnification: 110x
Width of field: 0.6 degree
It is interesting to observe at higher magnifications for details. It is a magnificent view with two dark lanes clearly seen. A brighter circular core is visible within the large elongated central bulge. West of the center lies a double dark lane. The regions other than the dark lanes show unevenness in brightness.

Great Globular M15

M15

M15
Sketch and Details by Eric Graff

Object Name: NGC 7078 (M15)
Object Type: Globular Cluster
Constellation: Pegasus
Right Ascension (2000.0): 21h 29m 58.3s
Declination (2000.0): +12° 10′ 01″
Magnitude: 6.3
Diameter: 18.0′
Concentration Class: 4
Distance: 30,600 light years
Discovery: Jean-Dominique Maraldi II, September 1746
NGC Description: ! Cl, vB, vL, iR, vsmbM, rrr, st vS

Date/Time: 28 September 2008 • 04:30-06:15 UT
Location: Oakzanita Springs, San Diego Co., California, USA
Telescope: Parks Astrolight EQ6 • 6″ f/6 Newtonian Reflector
Eyepiece: Parks 7.5mm Gold Series Plössl
Magnification: 120x
Field of View: 26′
Filter: None
Conditions: Clear, calm, 62°F
Seeing: Pickering 6
Transparency: NELM 6.4, TLM 14.3

It has been quite some time since I’ve sketched a really nice globular cluster, so after spending a bit of time chasing down a few dubious targets in northeastern Cygnus, I settled on a prolonged observation of Messier 15. The northernmost of the autumn sky’s three “Great Globulars” (the other two being M2 in Aquarius and M30 in Capricornus), M15 is easy enough to locate 4° northwest of colorful Epsilon Pegasi, tucked into a narrow triangle of 6th, 7th and 8th magnitude stars; these are HD 204862, HD 204571 and HD 204712, respectively.

Technically visible to the naked eye (I’ve never seen it thus, however), it is easily visible in binoculars as a slightly fuzzy star. At low telescopic magnification (30x), I see M15 as an unresolved nebulous patch with a blazing center and an irregular, spidery outline in a pleasing starfield. It is an interesting exercise to defocus the low-power field and compare the 6.1 magnitude glow of HD 204862 with the 6.3 magnitude glow of M15. Which one looks brighter to you?

At medium magnification (60x), I am able to resolve perhaps a dozen stars around the perimeter of the cluster. The core remains very bright and highly condensed. The entire face of the cluster is granular with stars just beyond the point of true resolution. Wispy streamers of faint starlight that drift in and out of visibility enhance the irregular outline of M15. At high magnification (120x) scores of distinct stars dance across the face of the cluster, spilling beyond its edges in curved arcs and narrow streams. Overall, the cluster is elongated slightly NNE-SSW with a bright central core. Countless minute suns seethe like a heap of restless diamond dust and several dark lanes crisscross the cluster, particularly toward the NE where several rifts run nearly parallel to one another; a peculiar dark patch SW of the nucleus is also noteworthy. Eighth magnitude HD 204712, 10th magnitude TYC 1127-128-1, and a handful of anonymous 13th magnitude stars share the high power field of view with M15.

This sketch was made on 67 lb. cover stock in a 3-inch circle with #2 mechanical pencil (0.5mm lead), blending stump and black ink (for the two bright field stars).